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South Korea to offer North matches in World Cup bid

"It (hosting the World Cup) will contribute greatly to not only the football game itself but to the international situation in and around the Korean peninsula," Han told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday.

"We have plans to arrange a couple of games, maybe two or three games to be played in the northern part of Korea."

"We don't know exactly what the situation will be by the year 2022, we might be a unified country or we might still be a divided country, either way it will be a good opportunity to bring North Korea into the mainstream of the world and it will contribute good relations between north and south."

"We have not discussed this matter in any official way and I don't expect the North Korean football people to be able to say anything authoritative about this but we will have plenty of time between this year and 2022 regarding the collaboration," Han said.

"It looks like it is too soon... but it will be 20 years apart. It will be a whole new game than 2002 and we are emphasising that it will be our first bona fide full World Cup if we can get it.

"Doing it ourselves, we will have greater responsibility but also greater opportunity to accomplish a more coherent and efficient and much more focused World Cup that we have seen before."

"It would be giving a message that a country that came out of war, under development and division can bec